It’s likely to be a long time before music lovers will be able to crowd into beautiful Severance Hall to hear the classics performed by one of the best orchestras in the country, an outcome that seemed unlikely when the Cleveland Orchestra announced its 2020-21 season back at the beginning of the year. But here we are.
Meanwhile, the Orchestra has provided content broadcast through ideastream, and released two new recordings to feed its audience’s hunger for music.
And this summer, more than 100 musicians from the Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus got together to perform the “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s beloved Ninth Symphony in 16 public locations around northeast Ohio for The Beethoven 9 Project. The locations include the steps of Severance Hall, Blossom Music Center, Cleveland Botanical Garden and Holden Arboretum, Lake Erie shore, Historic League Park, Progressive Field, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland Metroparks’s polo fields, Soldiers and Sailors memorial at Public Square, and President Garfield’s tomb in Lake View Cemetery. An archival recording from a 2018 performance at Severance Hall, led by Music Director Franz Welser-Möst provided the soundtrack for the video production.
It was posted September 24 on The Cleveland Orchectra’s social media. Watch it here or here.
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